Words to the wise
It is necessary to share some important quotes from my first rotation. None of them are in order, and ask me for the backstory on each if necessary.
Andrea: Was she back in the magic insulin shower?
Neeral: Once it hits your lips, it's so good! (Old school kids)
Neeral: Ah-ha, you have caught onto my thinly veiled sexism.
Me: Blame the game, not the player.
Psych service
So I am currently on my Internal Medicine service. And I love my resident. And I love my intern. And I love my SubI and my fellow, Raj.
However, despite this being the med service, my patients are all in need of psych. It's like I've seen psychosis, OCD, bipolar, suicidal, schizoid, and the list goes on. Ain't nothing like knowing your patients need way more help that you can even begin to supply.
Boys will be boys
Someone glared at me today for doing using my feminine 'wiles' to get information from a patient. I had a teenage boy in my care, and he had a big crush on me. It's not because I'm beautiful or awesome. I'm mysterioiusly older, neat, clean, well dressed, confident, and open w/o being vulnerable. That is way better than what the average high school girl has going for them. Of course its not shocking that boys get crushes on their female med students.
So no one has any right to be remotely pissed off that I used that knowledge to get my point across. Nothing hits harder than a girl you are crushing on telling you that you can get erectile dysfunction and go blind before you die if you don't take your insulin. In fact, don't be pissed that my characteristics that you find attractive, my patients found attractive too. If you have something you need to say, open your mouth and say it, don't glare at me like you think I clubbed your favorite kitten to death.
(No kittens were injured in the posting of this blog)
The bad med student
I confess; I am not a good med student. For starters, I have this fearless concept so I miss giving the proper respect to people. And I have a tendency to greet people and talk to them normally, even if they are the head of 'such and such' department. Today for example - I was heading home at 7pm and happened to say 'have a good evening' to a surgeon that walked by.
Him: It's starting to look like it will be. (Begins walking me down the hall.)
Me: Well, I guess, seeing as you are a surgeon and will be here forever.
Him: 'Forever,' that's a little . . . what's the word?
Me: I don't know. Naive? Mean? Sterotypical? Outstandingly presumptous?
Him: *laughs* I like the last one. (Looks around) Do you know where room X is?
Me: (points b/c we are standing right next to it) Right next to X-2
Him: Okay, thanks. You have a good night, honey.
Yeah, I know, 'honey.' Are you kidding me? I'm an M3 who not very subtly made fun of your hours. I have no room to talk, and you still call me honey.
And now for something completely different . . .
A few people have commented to me that all I seem to talk about on this blog is movies and judo. Yes, that is true. I mean, come on, you don't want to hear more boring boring med speak. And I spend so much time being good and nice at work, it's a little refreshing to try to strangle someone at judo.
However, in the interests of my readers, yesterday
Ene took her
Boards. After an exhaustive search for a random esoteric fact for my attending
(see here for pimping comments), I managed to get to Brazenhead for a drink. When I say drink, I mean 'sit there and not drink, but talk to people who are not in the hospital' .' I tell you it was highly refreshing. I met some of Ene's Erins, got invited to a party, and heard yet another reason why I will not become a surgeon from a fellow Med 3.
But once again, most important thing was Ene taking her boards. As stated in many a post before, boards really does suck. They force you to memorize all of this stuff and then try to make you regurgitate it back up for 360 convulted questions. Well, about 40 of the questions are so hilariously easy it wasn't worth studying, but the other 320 are still rough. And only 300 technically count, so you have no way to know how well you did.
Trinity has nothing on me
I got to go to judo today. Dr. H called me 'Matrix' because I have keep landing on my feet when he tries to throw me. For all intents and purposes, I should be on my butt, but I'm flexible and sort of dodge and jump. Today Virgil went to throw me, and I hopped over it. Since he had clearly missed, it took him two tries to just shove me down. The rest of the team teased him about his second and third efforts.
In other news, white guy black belt in the blue gi told me I was cute and patted me on the head. I grabbed him by the gi and pulled him like I would throw him. Since he was surprised, he almost got tossed by a lowly green belt like me. Brian was, "yeah, we don't need to protect her honor here, she does it on her own. I can't wait till some crusty surgeon calls her 'Honey' and she scapels him."
It was a pretty good day. My attending gave me pretty positive feedback for my first 2 weeks. Our new attending is very different, but our entire team gets along great. I really like my intern and my resident. In fact, I would consider seeing them socially after we are no longer in an 'evaluative relationship.'
Career counseling w/the dean
I passed Boards!
Hilariously enough, I was seeing Dr. Clinchot for something else when he mentioned that I should check my email. There was a email that my score was at the med school, and I needed to talk to him. Before he gave me my score, he asked me what I wanted to be. Me:Dunno, maybe ER. (He gave me my score; I sort of stared)
And then he started career counseling me right there. And this was the gist of his comments - you are doing a great job. Keep working like you did for Step 1 and you have nothing to worry about.
Who would have known, I did something well. :)
Congrats to everyone else in the med school who survived or are surviving boards!
It happened.
My first patient died today. I don't know what to say.
The Devil Wears Prada
I successfully saw two movies this past weekend - one with Tobi and one with
Anuradha. So let's hit the reviews - on a scale of 1-5. (1 being "my mother's poodle could have made a better movie" and 5 being "I'll convert to this director's religion.")
The Devil Wears Prada - 4
This movie is a comedy, but not a romantic comedy in the 'boy meets girl' sense. It is really more about falling under the spell of fashion and glitter and trading your values for a terrible job that 'a million girls would kill for.' I give this a four because I have been and will be in positions where you will do whatever it takes to meet and please whatever random and illogical whim another person has. I have been told med 3 is alot like this sometimes, and I guess I really felt for that.
On the less positive. The guy who was the romantic competition was not hot enough or a good enough actor. I'm sort of sad that they changed the ending from the book. I would recommend reading the book and watching the movie. I also wish that had outright said something specifically about how stupid it is to starve yourself for fashion. It was implied, but I really wish we had a voice over about our hero regaining the weight or some PSA.
Superman 2.5
Superman - 2.5
I was disappointed. I expected more from a
Bryan Singerproduction. The action scenes, particularly the plane one in the beginning were good, but there were some significant problems. For example, Superman came off more of as 'super creepy super stalker' to me, abusing his Xray vision and super hearing more than I was comfortable. Next, unlike in X-men, the boundaries of Superman's powers are never defined. He really has no limits - or if there are apparent limits - the rules keep getting bent. (Compare his relative strength in the airplane scene versus his outer space scene near the end)
The biggest problem I have is actually with Clark Kent, or lack thereof. The linchpin of all the previous Superman movies and Smallville is Clark Kent. As portrayed by
Chrisopher Reeve, the fun part was the interactions between Clark and Lois. He's all steady and supportive while she has the biggest crush on Superman. All of that was missing in this movie. That aspect was completely taken over by
Cyclops (James Marsden). Worse, should we be rooting for our hero, Superman, to break up a solid relationship that has a child?
Accepted at last
Today, I went to judo practice, and Virgil actually did ground work against me. It does seem odd that I would celebrate the fact that a 350lb 6th degree black belt allowed me to be crushed by him, but that's not the point. Virgil doesn't let you fight him until he decides you are ready enough or at least, I guess, worthy. The last girl who was here NEVER fought him.
So I guess I've been accepted. Wow, bruises, split lip, and irritation of the common peroneal nerve aside, it was great!
